• About
    • What Should I Read to Understand Zoning?
  • Market Urbanism Podcast
  • Adam Hengels
  • Stephen Smith
  • Emily Hamilton
  • Jeff Fong
  • Nolan Gray
  • Contact

Market Urbanism

Liberalizing cities | From the bottom up

“Market Urbanism” refers to the synthesis of classical liberal economics and ethics (market), with an appreciation of the urban way of life and its benefits to society (urbanism). We advocate for the emergence of bottom up solutions to urban issues, as opposed to ones imposed from the top down.

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Linkedin
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • Podcast
  • Economics
  • housing
  • planning
  • Transportation
  • zoning
  • Urban[ism] Legends
  • How to Fight Gentrification
  • Culture of Congestion by Sandy Ikeda
  • What Should I Read to Understand Zoning?

In praise of fee simple ownership

September 9, 2020 By Salim Furth

In yesterday’s post, I showed that missing middle housing, as celebrated in Daniel Parolek’s new book, may be stuck in the middle, too balanced to compete with single family housing on the one hand and multifamily on the other.

But what about all the disadvantages that middle housing faces? Aren’t those cost disadvantages just the result of unfair regulations and financing?

Indeed, structures of three or more units are subject to a stricter fire code. It’s costly to set up a condo or homeowners’ association. Small-scale infill builders don’t have economies of scale.

Those, and the other barriers to middle housing that Parolek lays out in Chapter 4, seem inherent or reasonable rather than unfair.

In particular, most middle housing types cannot, if all units are owner-occupied, use a brilliant legal tradition known as “fee simple” ownership. Fee simple is the most common form of ownership in the Anglosphere and it facilitates clarity in transactions, chain of title, and maintenance.

Urbanists should especially favor fee simple ownership of most city parcels because it facilitates redevelopment. Consider a six-plex condominium nearing the end of its useful life: to demolish and redevelop the site requires bringing six owners to agreement on the terms and timing of redevelopment. A single-owner building can be bought in a single arms-length transaction.

It’s no coincidence that the type of middle housing with the greatest success in recent years – townhomes – can be occupied by fee-simple owners, combining the advantages of owner-occupancy with the advantages of the fee simple legal tradition.

Many middle housing forms enjoy their own structural advantage: one unit is frequently the home of the (fee simple) owner. By occupying one unit, a purchaser can also access much lower interest rates than a non-resident landlord. (This is thanks to FHA insurance, as Parolek notes on p. 86). Having the owner onsite helps solve some of the common problems that arise in landlord-tenant relationships, and it’s a classic path to financial independence.

As the Dropkick Murphys spat in Flannigan’s Ball:

Then he hit a big one and felt like a man again

Bought a three-decker with two floors to rent

Triple deckahs in Boston

This is the second of three posts reviewingMissing Middle Housing. The first covered the economics of middle housing; the third discusses the biggest successes in contemporary middle housing.

Tweet

Share this:

  • Email
  • Print
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Reddit
  • LinkedIn

Filed Under: Architecture and Design, Book Review, housing Tagged With: books, Economics, housing, missing middle

Market Urbanism Podcast

Connect With Us

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Linkedin
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Recent Posts

  • The conspiracy theory of rent increases
  • Herbert Hoover reconsidered
  • YIMBYs and liberals
  • Introducing Szymon Pifczyk
  • Are the new carbon footprint maps accurate?
  • Wanted: Market urbanist research assistant
  • An Anti-Anti-NIMBY article
  • Would the Vienna strategy work here?
  • Louisville and density regulation
  • Urban Paths “World” Cup
  • Is affordability just, “You get what you pay for”?
  • Before YIMBY
My Tweets

Market Sites Urbanists should check out

  • Cafe Hayek
  • Culture of Congestion
  • Environmental and Urban Economics
  • Foundation for Economic Education
  • Let A Thousand Nations Bloom
  • Marginal Revolution
  • Mike Munger | Kids Prefer Cheese
  • Neighborhood Effects
  • New Urbs
  • NYU Stern Urbanization Project
  • Parafin
  • Peter Gordon's Blog
  • Propmodo
  • The Beacon
  • ThinkMarkets

Urbanism Sites capitalists should check out

  • Austin Contrarian
  • City Comforts
  • City Notes | Daniel Kay Hertz
  • Discovering Urbanism
  • Emergent Urbanism
  • Granola Shotgun
  • Old Urbanist
  • Pedestrian Observations
  • Planetizen Radar
  • Reinventing Parking
  • streetsblog
  • Strong Towns
  • Systemic Failure
  • The Micro Maker
  • The Urbanophile

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries RSS
  • Comments RSS
  • WordPress.org

Copyright © 2023 Market Urbanism

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.